UFP

The ground was hot against my feet, through my boots. The soil here was ash, gray and powdery. Behind me, a plume of it rose, disturbed by my pounding feet. Looking back, I could see still more, pursuing me. The sun shone in my eyes, swollen and red as it fell toward the horizon. Night would fall quickly once it set - I had to find shelter before then, or risk fleeing on an open plain when I couldn't see, and those that chased me could.

I could not help but marvel, as I ran. She had set her fathers Hounds on me, of all things. Me, a simple (if valued) man-slave. One in a position that for most of the altii was little more than another accessory, chosen for fashion and utility, and little more. Not even a particularly valuable one, for how could one put much value on a slave you someday must send to their death?

The idea of escape came to me years ago. The opportunity took much longer. My mistress was a kind one, but I still wore the collar. So when I found the chance, I ran.

I was running still. The too-soft ground was not kind to my aching feet, nor was the hot air much good to my burning lungs. I was on the edge of the empire, a days ride from the free lands of men. Heartbreakingly close to freedom. Across the chain of volcanoes the altii called the Emperors Breath, and (so the stories told) I would find green hills and other escaped slaves, living as equals.

I would never see it. I felt that, burning in my chest beside the demands for air and cool water. Had I evaded my trackers for another day yet, I might have crossed. Now, however, my chances were slim. 

I almost passed over the defile when I first saw it. It was a narrow canyon, at the base of one of the smaller volcanoes. The crevasse was dark, and wide enough for a man to walk down with his arms spread, but no more. It would do. I dashed inside, stumbling when I found hard rock instead of soft ash beneath my feet. I careened off the wall and fell, my pack skittering across the smooth stone to stop hardly two hands breadths from the lava flow at the end of the defile.

It was a slow flow, a gentle eruption of the fires under the earth. It was advancing at perhaps the length of a knuckle every breath. It was cool for what it was, I knew, but the even still the heat of it so close took my breath away. I had, as the proverb went, gone from the pan straight into the fire.

The strap of my pack had just begun to catch fire when I snatched it back, rolling onto my backside and scuttling back a few yards. I could hear one of the Hounds in the near distance, baying. It's sound was like a low, sad song, thin and mournful. I would make my stand here. If I could dispatch the Hounds before she came, I could escape once more, perhaps. My mind seized on that fragile hope, calming my shaking hands as I searched through my bag. The last of my druj was thankfully unharmed, the tiny vial uncracked despite the ride it had taken in my pack. 

Hurriedly, I uncorked it and knelt, facing the flow of molten rock. Closing my eyes, I called up the symbols of earth and fire in my mind, and made them one. I dipped my fingers into the vial, feeling the familiar sting of the druj as it touched my skin. I leant forward, slowly, and touched my fingers to the stone. I hissed in pain - the rock was uncomfortably hot, and only growing hotter as I inscribed the combined symbol. 

When I opened my eyes, the druj was glowing brightly, burning my eyes with it's white-blue radiance. Just beyond, the molten rock had stopped, as if it had met a solid wall. In a way, it had. My ward complete, and holding strongly, I wiped the last, wasted scraps of the druj from my fingers, and stood.

The baying of the Hounds sounded again, far closer. The closest of them, it's call high and clear, came from the canyons mouth. I licked my lips, regretting that I would not have a chance to take a drink before what was to come. I took a deep breath - the air was cool now, deprived of the magmas heat - and drew my sword. 

It was a slender thing, sharp and quick. A duelists weapon, made to kill men. It was woefully inadequate on the battlefield or against an armored man. Or, for that matter, against one of the altii's beasts. It was, however, all that I had. I kicked my pack behind me just as the first Hound padded down the stone toward me.

I had never seen on of the Hounds before so closely. Half as tall as a man at the shoulder, they resemble no dog I have ever seen. Hairless, with skin that is smooth and over their bodies. In color they vary greatly - the one that stood before me was jet black. Further back, I could see another, with dark red or orange skin, pausing at the entry to howl to it's packmates.

The black Hound stopped just more than fifteen feet from where I stood. It turned it's elongated head to watch me, it's dark, burning eyes regarding me from first one side of its skull, and then the other. It sniffed, letting out a deep, wheezing sound before growling, baring  it's enormous, gray-yellow teeth.

I tensed, waiting for the beasts next move. It shifted, massive muscles coiling under it's skin. The growl grew deeper. That was a sound I knew - the sound the altii had trained them for, and the one that every slave knew. That sound demanded submission, instantly and absolutely. It was the sound I had heard when my mistresses father put down one of the great revolts, when I was hardly more than a child. It had terrified me back then, a deep rumbling that implied a swift death would soon follow, even to one as innocent as myself back then.

Being up close, and far less innocent, I felt a tremor run over me. My knees buckled, but only for an instant. One of my caste is made of sterner stuff than most. Ironic that what my masters had trained me for was the thing that would give me freedom. Or kill me. Before conscious thought pushed me to my knees, I was moving. Instinct is a virtue for a duelist, one that is honed early and often. The Hounds head was still turned to one side, one beady eye fixed on me. It flinched as I charged, then let out an outraged croak as the tip of my sword slipped between it's throat and collarbone.

All this took perhaps half a breath. The beast took just a moment longer in dying, slumping to the ground and nearly dragging me down with it. It let out a small, anguished sound as it expired, it's heart punctured neatly. Hot blood covered my hand and the sword's hilt. I yanked it out, clumsily, just in time to see the red Hound coming. It charged the moment it's companion fell, making no sound as it launched itself, powerful hind legs throwing itself bodily toward me. 

Instinct saved me yet again. I obeyed my shrieking mind and threw myself down, landing in the rapidly pooling blood of the dead Hound. The leaping beast soared over me, it's powerful jump carrying it well past where I had stood. Past my ward, through it, and into the liquid rock. It shrieked in pain - a startlingly human sound, flailing as it sank into the burning stone. It was only feet from my barrier, but it stood no chance. 

In it's own way, the dying beast was my undoing. I stood, shakily, and stared in shock. I chided myself for forgetting flesh as one of the elements of my ward. It could have been me falling through the barrier and into the molten rock, or an innocent. I had enough time to just begin considering giving the poor beast quick release when another crashed into me, smashing me bodily to the stone floor. It's mouth latched over my shoulder, crushing teeth biting against me.

I screamed, half in shock, half in outrage. I had kept a hold on my sword, and I was fortunate enough to find it in my free hand. I reversed my grip, nearly losing it when the Hound jerked it's head, shaking me like a toy - demanding my submission in no uncertain terms. The first warning for an unruly slave is the presence of the hound. Then comes the growl. Then the soft bite - the bite that only snapped limbs. After that, the hound would tear them off. I had little time.

I felt the bones of my shoulder creak, then pop, crushed by the beasts jaw. I shrieked in pain. While I did, my unconcious mind took over, and my sword found the Hound's eye, and stabbed. I threw all of my strength against it. For a moment, I felt the jaws tighten as the beast spasmed, before it crashed down in a heap. Sobbing in agony, my free hand slippery with blood and the humors of the Hounds eye, I prised it's jaw open, and slipped my ruined shoulder free. 

I could not move my left arm at all. It hung, useless, at my side, my shoulder a mass of agony. I was not bleeding, but I was broken. Without aid, I would be dead from an imbalance of my humors, or lose my arm to gangrene, or, best of all options, it would heal a splintered mass, and I would never use my arm again. 

Another growl drew my attention. A final hound stood, half a dozen yards away, ready to leap. Alabaster skin and red eyes. To my pain-hazed vision, it looked like death. I could see what would happen - I would dive for my sword. The Hound would leap. It would catch my head in it's jaws, or my neck, and I would be dead. I had no choice.

"Hold," she said. The Hounds massive head turned back toward then entrance, and it cringed. Standing there was my mistress, the lady Anastriana ko'Madrat fer Teneis. Ana, to her friends. The woman that owned me. My oppressor. My closest friend. My childhood rival. The only person in all the world I had ever admitted in my heart-of-hearts to loving more than I loved myself.

She was short for an altii, with a compact build. Broad shoulders and strong arms, running down to a toned core. Her hair was copper red, like most of her people. Her cheekbones were high, regal, and covered with furrows resembling scars, forming an intricate web that stretched from just beside her nose along the bone, until it disappeared beneath her hair. It was this that marked her, indisputably, as one of the altii. These markings were glowing faintly - she was angry, but not enough to let it show in a more conventional sense. 

"You've made a mess of yourself, Airk." She said, quietly. She stepped forward, her armor creaking faintly. She laid a hand on the remaining Hounds head. Her bright yellow eyes finally left mine, moving over the two dead Hounds bodies, and the burning remains of the third. "A mess of the family property, too."

"Small sins, for one that runs." I said. She flinched, then nodded. She pursed her lips for a moment, her marks fading.

"I mistreated you." She said.

"Yes."

"But that isn't why you ran."

"No."

She closed her eyes, drawing herself up with a deep breath. "Tell me why." She said. Her tone was level.

"I'm a free man, Ana. If I have to die, it'll be a death of my own choosing."

She remained quite still as I spoke. Her eyes closed, her expression peaceful. "What am I, then?"

I paused. "A loyal servant of the emperor. Your fathers daughter. A soldier of your house."

She nodded, fractionally. Her eyes opened, brilliant yellow finding mine. "You are what you say you are, and I am what you say I am." She turned, slowly. "Come." She beckoned. "If you must fight me, do it under the open sky."

***

I never met my mother. I was taken from her, nothing more than a squalling baby, hardly more than a few months old. She'd be a seamstress for an altii household and when the yearly tithe came due I was what they came for. I learned to walk in a barracks, trained from the moment I could stand in the art of battle. My bunkmates were the closest thing I had to family. We trained together. Ate together. Slept in the barracks as a unit. We fought, both to hone what we were taught, and among ourselves for scraps or favors from the guards.

I was happiest then. I knew nothing else, and so I found nothing wrong with my life. I grew into a wiry boy, skinnier than my barracks-mates, but faster than them, sly and quick to find advantage. It was those qualities that drew the trainers eyes.

So I was plucked from the barracks in the dead of night, given a room to myself and clean clothes. In the mornings, I practiced with other boys like myself, training with wooden swords as slim as reeds. It was combat still, but different from the brawling I had learnt before. This was the duel, the purest expression of violence in the empire.

In the afternoons, we sat together in the shade, and learned our letters. Scrawling them into the sand. Again, I drew my teachers attention with clean, neat lines and quick fingers.

I was given additional work, told to copy strange symbols, and to memorize them until I could reproduce and combine them without effort. I did not know it then, but they were teaching me the first tenets of warding - the magic of barriers and secrets.

When I was twelve, they revealed to me the purpose behind my lessons. I can still recall the first time I touched the druj, feeling it's icy, burning touch on my fingers. The marvels it created - invisible walls that blocked only flesh, or wood, or flame, or sound. I learnt the combinations of symbols, and the properties of my wards. The more complex the powers or shape of a ward became, the weaker it would be. More of the precious druj would strengthen them, but no barrier could last forever.

But it was power, and I quickly grew to love it. When I learned what I was trained for, I believed I had found my life's purpose. I was to serve as the warder for one of the altii, a living weapon dedicated to my masters defense, serving at his whim. I would act as his secretary and his servant, perhaps even his confidant. In return for his benevolence, I was to lay down my life for his, or for his honor.

I was fourteen when they declared my training complete, and I was sold. I was fitted for a collar, marked with the sigil of House Teneis. I was allowed to walk unchained in public. The awe that the other slaves I met on my journey fed my young ego. The newly tempered sword riding at my side did as well. The looks of contempt I received from the unruly sorts hardly fazed me - I knew what I was.

When I was delivered to my new home, I expected to be welcomed. Instead, I was beaten by my new lord for the insolence in my greeting. Bruised and bloody, he ordered me to sleep in the stables. For the first time in my life, I wept.

In the morning, I was fed, cleaned, and presented again. My lord laughed at my humbler tone and cuffed me on the ear. "He'll do." He said, his markings blazing.

I was ushered from his court, my ears burning. His captain of the guard, still laughing, brought me to the families quarters. I met my mistress there.

"He's awfully small," she'd said, frowning at her mother. I stared - I was a head and a half taller than she, and armed. Her mother shushed her. "He is yours, child. Your warder. If you'll be a soldier of the house, you'll never be without one." 

She threw a tantrum. I was escorted out, to my quarters - a tiny room attached to hers, and told to unpack. 

She protested my unworthiness by ignoring me. She paid me mind only when we sparred, where she fought with a sort of contained rage that made her small size no disadvantage. She beat me perhaps two times in five, and she never forgave me my victories. Her silence spoke volumes. I followed her, of course, like an obedient dog, but her lack of acknowledgement stung more fiercely than any insult she might have hurled.

I had a sort of freedom, once a day. My mistress was given lessons on history and philosophy. By old decree, no slave was allowed to learn either. They were subjects for free men and the altii, but in slaves did nothing but foment revolt or cause unhappiness. 

If I had been a happy slave, I might have believed that, but I was not. At first, I spent my free hours with the guards, trying strong drink for the first time (and regretting it), or wasting my time gambling with bones. I found no joy in either pursuit, so I decided I would sleep instead.

I did, too, until I discovered that I could draw the door to my little room open the tiniest fraction, and eavesdrop on my ladies lessons. At first it was to occupy my time, until I became addicted. Her tutor was a dry, doddering old altii, but the stories he told set my soul to fire. He spoke of the old world, the time that came before, when the races of the world had been one. Stories rich in metaphor and lessons, with foolish heroes becoming monsters or wise men making fortunes.

I listened daily. I learned. I heard him tell how the altii had come to be - a great experiment by a great nation, making themselves greater than all other men. Gifting themselves with resilience and heightened senses and the markings that set them so apart from their lesser kin, they lost only one thing.

Magic. Their gifts were great, but they had twisted themselves, made themselves unnatural. The loss of a few parlor tricks - albeit useful ones - proved no obstacle, as their nation conquered most of the continent.

It was during a lecture on one of these wars of conquest when she spotted me. I'd become uncomfortable sitting still for so long, and moved, just a fraction of an inch. The noise I made could not have been more than the faintest rustle. Her eyes flickered to my hiding place, and met mine. Her gaze held mine for a long moment, before moving back to her tutor.

She found me afterwards.

"You were listening." She said.

"Yes, mistress."

"You are forbidden to by the emperor, yes?"

"Yes, mistress.

"I could have you killed for this." Her eyes were bright. I cringed.

"Yes, mistress."

"But I won't." She continued.

"I-" I blinked, stumbling over my words. "Yes, mistress." She punched my arm.

"Say something else, idiot. If you're going to listen, start taking notes for me." She sniffed. "My hand gets tired."

"Ye-" I stopped myself. "Of course, mistress."

She punched me again. "Stop that." She growled.

"Stop what?"

"Calling me that! If this were a story, you'd only call me that around my father. Call me my name."

"Forgive me." I resisted the urge to bow and scrape. "I do not know your name."

She turned, regarding me sidelong, a smirk tugging at her lips. "Call me Ana."

***

The sun is just starting to go down as we make our way out onto the plain. Ash is beginning to fall from one of the eruptions nearby. Her packs - a more extensive variety compared to my poor satchel - are set just outside the defile. When I make my way out, she is rifling through them. When she turns, she holds a waterskin. 

"Here," she says, throwing it to me, "drink up." I catch it. My shoulder sends jolts of agony along my side as I twist to keep the skin from hitting the earth. I straighten, slowly, and take a long drink. The water is fresh, sweet. It contains no poison, or drug. My mistress is too honorable for such tricks.

I drain the skin entirely, and toss it back. She tosses it, carelessly, on the ground. "Will you still fight me?" She asks, resting her hands on her hips.

"Yes." I reply thickly. I square my shoulders, ignoring the spasm of agony the motion causes. "Will you?"

She looks down at the ash for a moment, then up, squinting into the setting sun. After a moment she speaks. 

"Yes."

She draws her sword. It could be the twin of the one I carry in a bruised, blood-marked hand. Hers is clean, polished. Mine is caked with blood and worse. She flicks her wrist casually, limbering herself up. She's tense, I can see it, her markings taking on a sheen - signaling her adrenaline, her anticipation.

I bring my sword up, keeping my good side facing her. She makes her way closer, her motions too deliberately casual to be as careless as she's pretending. Her first blow I catch with a quick parry, sending her blade sparking off to one side. I block the next almost as quickly. For a moment, it feels like just another sparring match, like the thousands that had come before.

Then she moves, her motion almost too quick for my eye to follow. She flows to my right, her blade slashing high. I deflect it with a desperate swing and take a step back. My balance is off, and she knows it. She gives me a sudden, fierce grin - I recognize it from our sparring. The look she gets when she thinks she has won.

When she comes at me again, her thrust is low and quick. I step clumsily to one side - my shoulder flares with agony. Her blade slips past my defense, it's path takes it through my shirt, missing my torso. She stumbles as the resistance she expected fails to appear, and there is my chance.

My sword flicks down, catching her across the back of her calf. Her armor splits, and she bleeds. I push her away and stumble back. Her expression is shocked, hurt. She straightens, almost primly, the form of her stance perfect. Her blade comes up. She grimaces in pain, and lunges. Her leg gives out, and she falls. I drop my sword and sink down to the ground, sitting heavily.

"You cut me." She said. She shifted, rolling onto her back and yanking at her sleeve, tearing it. Her marks were blazing.

"You nearly killed me, Ana." I said.

She scowled, tying the fabric around her wound - a simple dressing that wouldn't do her much good for long. "I have every right to have tried." She looked lop-sided now, one side of her clothing a mess of ripped fabric. She takes hold of her sword and tries to stand. She yelps as she puts weight on her injured leg, and falls again. 

"It's a clean cut." I say. "A mender could patch it, surely." I move to rise, to help her, but collapse as my hurt arm collides with the ground, sending pain shooting up the length of me.

"How will I get there?" She asked. "We're fifty miles from a mender at the best, Airk." She pushed herself up onto her knees, her face a mask of pain.

"I'm sorry, Ana." I say.

"Damn you, Airk." She hisses, her voice low, hurt. "I'll die."

What she said was true. Unable to walk, she would last only as long as her supply of water - if the beasts of the wastes did not find her first. "If I leave you, yes," I said.

She paused, her eyes fixed on the ground before her. "But you aren't going to, are you?"

"No."

***

-Life at court with Ana, her coming of age.

-Airk gathering his supplies, spending the night in the defile. He cleans Ana's wound and she sets his shoulder. They talk.

-Flashback to Airks first duel. 

-The long walk back. Both of them are low on food and water, and Airk must carry Ana.